While the average person may not have much interest in automotive industry news, a lot of useful information can be obtained. This would include the interesting reasoning behind why you can't always find the car you want at a dealership. Many consultants push for dealers to listen to the customers and their needs. Though this suggestion would work when you look at it theoretically, there are some things that are stopping it from happening.
It is not actually the dealers that are dropping the ball most of the time; it's the automakers themselves. They may not ship what has been requested by the dealers, instead shipping the vehicle they want. This leaves the dealers with an inventory that isn't what they requested or what their customers want.
This unfortunate circumstance leaves the dealer with the choice of resorting to hard sell tactics or letting the vehicles sit around forever. Those hard to sell cars can continue to sit for a while, but ultimately they will create problems for the dealer, as no customer may really want to buy them. You either hope they have the vehicle you want or sometimes settling on another choice.
It is not actually the dealers that are dropping the ball most of the time; it's the automakers themselves. They may not ship what has been requested by the dealers, instead shipping the vehicle they want. This leaves the dealers with an inventory that isn't what they requested or what their customers want.
This unfortunate circumstance leaves the dealer with the choice of resorting to hard sell tactics or letting the vehicles sit around forever. Those hard to sell cars can continue to sit for a while, but ultimately they will create problems for the dealer, as no customer may really want to buy them. You either hope they have the vehicle you want or sometimes settling on another choice.
Continued build up of those vehicles can leave the dealer with absolutely no cars that will fit their customers' needs or wants. You will definitely want to figure this in when you head into that local dealership and don't see a car you want.
Those hard to sell vehicles that continue to sit around are called a "brown banana", because it's become overripe and the value has been going down as it continues to sit around. At this point what can a dealer really do about that problem?
Giving away the cars free, while it might thrill customers, is something that isn't going to happen. Even when they knock off a lot of money on the price, they are hurting themselves as dealerships are held to making a certain amount of profit. If they don't make that amount of profit, they could be shut down.
Of course dealers could head back to the days when hard sells were being used all the time. However, that isn't going to make a customer happy in any way. Many people hated to see a salesperson walking up them in those days.
You've probably had it done before - you know the old "let me see those keys" routine. They would state they needed to look at your car to value it for trade-in, however, once those keys were gone it took some might serious persuasion for them to bring your car around so you could leave.
It was a process that earned many people a bad reputation in the past. They would wear you down over time, until you would finally agree to the sale. Not only would you get a car you weren't really sure you wanted, but you may have put yourself into too much debt.
